


Toast and the art of surprising Danny

by Lozza



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 21:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lozza/pseuds/Lozza
Summary: Danny knew how much Toast meant to him, but he was surprised and shocked about how much he must have meant to Toast. And how completely his favourite geek was going to change his life.





	Toast and the art of surprising Danny

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after season 8 episode 4. (Also just a piece of self indulgent fluff) 
> 
> Slightly AU in that Malia is still happily married to Chin and rated for some language.

Steve knew he was fooling no-one as he kept looking at his watch, even Junior had noticed and he’d been known to miss huge things before. He couldn’t help it though, he hated it when Danny wasn’t with him, when he wasn’t in touching distance, when he wasn’t even in view.

He’d been called last night by a lawyer who demanded to see him this morning, and had left Steve to get Gracie and Charlie to school and himself to work on his own with a kiss and a sincere: “Be careful” to all of them.

That had been three hours ago now, and Steve knew he was getting antsy. He pulled his phone out and checked, but no more messages since the last one 90 minutes ago just telling him:

_All fine, something about Toast. I’ll be back later._

Steve sighed, shook his head and caved, knowing Lou would laugh at him, but not caring. He typed out another reply but this time actually sent it.

 

Danny sat in his car and stared at the steering wheel for a long time, not seeing the leather in front of him. Every interaction he’d had with Toast, good or not so good, kept running through his mind from when he’d first met the stoned computer geek all those years ago to more recent times. Toast had been one of the two people he had classed as a friend before he’d met Steve, but this? He didn’t deserve this, not one bit of it, but Toast, the canny genius, had made stipulations virtually forcing Danny to accept it.

A buzz from his phone made him jump and he knew it was from his partner even before he looked at it.

_Later was an hour ago! Where are you? Do I need to get Jerry to track you?_

With an amused huff Danny sent a quick reply:

_On my way back. Keep your pants on :)_

With that he turned on the engine and headed back to the Palace. He could hear his phone buzz with more texts but left it until he’d parked next to Steve’s truck in his reserved spot before he read them.

_11:12 S: That’s not what you said last night._

_11:13 S: And not what I’ll say tonight either._

_11:15 S: You okay? D?_

_11:16 S: D?_

_11:17 S: Lou says you’re driving back._

_Are you?_

_Are you?_

_Are you?_

_11:19 Lou: Your man is batshit. I didn’t sign up for this crap._

_11:22 Tani: Photo attached. And you call J and me kids!_

The photo she’d sent was of Lou standing to one side of the tech table with a small Nerf gun in his hand, aimed at Steve, who was standing the other side. He had a massive Nerf gun held in both hands and appeared to be readying himself to spray the room with foam bullets from the ‘killer zone’ look on his face.

Danny laughed to himself and forwarded the photo to Chin before he got out of the car. When he got to their offices only a few moments later Steve was pelting the main area and anything that moved with felt-tipped bolts, a crazy look on his face, while Lou and Junior were fleeing in terror and Tani was hiding behind her office door. Eddie was running around, chasing the bullets, tail and butt wagging so much he was almost falling over.

Tani spotted Danny as he stood at the door, shaking his head, and grinned. “Danny!”

Steve stopped shooting, much to Lou’s relief, and grinned at him too. “You’re back.”

The detective walked in and looked around, and greeted Eddie when the dog trotted over to him with ear scritches. “Slow morning?” he queried.

“Lou suggested I do some paperwork,” Steve replied and gave him his: I-know-something’s-up-but-I-don’t-know-what face.

“That’ll do it,” his partner replied drily. “I need a …” he then said with a nod at Steve’s office.

“Okay,” Steve agreed. “Coffee needed?”

Danny nodded. “Buckets,” he told him. Steve frowned but took off the Nerf and handed it to Junior and headed to the coffee machine in their kitchen. By the time he got back Danny had already closed the blinds and was pacing the small room. He waited for Steve to walk in and shut the door firmly behind him.

“What happened?” Steve asked his agitated partner.

Danny took a mug from him and stared at it for a moment before he spoke. “Toast left me a lot of money,” he told him bluntly. “I don’t know why. He made sure his brother was okay, but gave most of his money to me.”

Steve stared at him in shock, put his own coffee down then sat down quickly on his sofa. “I…I didn’t know he had a brother,” he said after a few moments.

Danny huffed and sat down beside him. “I met him a couple of times. Decent guy, couple of minors for shoplifting when he was a kid. Firefighter now, in Hilo.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, Steve remembering the last he’d heard from Toast, until Danny pulled him out of it with a nudge of his elbow. “I knew he’d made it big with that app,” he said, knowing full well what his partner was thinking about. “I didn’t know about all the other apps.”

Steve turned to face him. “When you said ‘a lot’ what did you mean?” he asked, a mixture of curious and concerned.

Danny pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Here,” he told him and handed it over.

Steve took it with some trepidation, unfold it and began to read. Danny just sat next to him and drank his coffee and waited him out. It wasn’t a very long document, two sides of A4, typed, signed by Adam Charles and his lawyer, as his witness. It was simple, blunt, and to the point, and the Commander had to read it twice before he believed it.

“Holy fucking shit,” he murmured. “Forty million dollars?”

“Yup,” his partner replied. “And half of the rights to his apps. The other half goes to his brother.” He drank some more coffee. “Those made twenty million dollars last year. And he’d just launched five more apps this year.”

“How well did you know him?” was the next question out of the SEAL’s mouth. He was stunned to say the least, and that fond but sad expression on Danny’s face wasn’t helping one bit.

“You know how it was for me before I met you,” he commented, looking into his coffee. Steve nodded, Danny on his own, treated like shit by the locals and HPD, completely out of his comfort zone, determined not to fit in. And completely alone apart from 48 hours every two weeks when he had his daughter. He lived for those 48 hours, was a completely different person when he was with her, and Steve still ached for him when he thought about it. “Well, Toast was the only other person I talked to apart from Meka. We met when he was a witness to a robbery.” Danny shrugged. “He was just happy, you know? Didn’t treat me like crap because my accent didn’t match, didn’t talk pidgin just to insult me. I had a bag of candy in my car for Grace and I thought he was gonna faint, so I gave it to him.” He smiled as he remembered the huge grin Toast had given him when the bag of Halloween candy had been handed over and the sincere: “Thanks, Jersey.”

Steve smiled too, he could imagine what that simple act had done for both of them: for Danny someone who was genuine and genuinely happy to see him. And for Toast someone who didn’t treat him as just a drug user but also as someone who was a hell of a lot more than that. “When did you find out about his computer skills?” he asked him.

Danny snorted a laugh. “I couldn’t get my work laptop to work,” he explained. “I was ready to throw the fucking thing out of the window and run it over it. But he just grabbed it, shoved a lollipop in his mouth and almost re-wrote the whole programming. While I was driving him home.”

“And any more IT problems you kept going back?” Steve asked.

Danny nodded. “Found out he liked any sort of candy, but lollipops the best.” He glanced over at his partner, an almost sheepish expression on his face, but then shrugged to himself. “He was also pretty fluid with his sexuality, you know?”

Steve took a moment to figure that one out but when he did he had to push back the momentary surge of jealousy before he nodded. He could understand it and told himself that it was eight years ago and he and D hadn’t even met then. He wasn’t going to ask how long it went on for, he had no right, and he didn’t want to know either. “That and the candy, maybe why he made you his main beneficiary,” he said instead. “I don’t know, maybe you going to him all the time, and with Chin and me too, persuaded him to go ahead with those apps. You didn’t just see him as paka lolo, you saw him as him. Do you think?”

Danny thought about it for a few moments before he nodded. He knew, once he had introduced them Chin had asked Toast IT stuff as well over the years and Toast had been tickled pink about it when he’d told Danny. He’d been happy to tell D that he and Steve were virtually IT illiterate, something the detective agreed with, but Chin was something else entirely. “Toast told me he’d had a ‘geekgasm’ when Chin called him for help,” he told Steve, amused.

“Geekgasm?” Steve queried but then shook his head at the grin on D’s face. “Don’t tell me,” he implored. “Tell me what you’re going to do with the money instead.”

Danny’s smile faded and his face took on a far away look. “Most of it in trust for Grace and Charlie. Something for Eric.” he said quickly, no surprise there. “Pay you everything back for the restaurant.”

“No,” Steve said quickly, forcefully, surprising his partner. At Danny’s frown he forced himself to explain. “I know I’ve forced my way into your dream but I just…” he paused to thing about it. “I just need something tied to you.” He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

Danny surprised him again by elbowing him. “I do get it,” he told him. “But you don’t need to be ‘tied to me’. I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve frowned at him. “What if Grace goes to college on the mainland? What about then?”

Danny shrugged. “Then I’ll go and visit her every so often as I do my parents, and come back here. Charlie is here, Steve. You are here. I’m not going to up sticks and follow Grace any more. You, Kono and Chin, Kame, Malia, Adam, Toast, Lou, hell even Kawika and the new Kids have made this place home for me. I’m not going anywhere, you’re stuck with me.”

Steve’s smile was slow to form but wide and goofy. “Woe is me,” he replied drily and leant forward to kiss the corner of his mouth. “However,” he added after a few moments. “I’m still not going to let you buy me out.”

Danny watched him for a few moments before he grinned at him. “I’ll find a way,” he told him, highly amused. Steve huffed and exaggerated a pout, knowing it would make his partner laugh, which it did. He loved Danny’s laugh, he didn’t do it often and when he did it was a sight and sound to see. It lightened up his eyes, made his face look ten years younger, made whoever heard it, Steve mainly, feel the warmth of it surrounding him. Danny nudged him. “You’re gonna trip over that lip if you keep sticking it out like that,” he retorted, and laughed again when Steve stuck his tongue out at him in response. “Just for that I’ll buy you a Prius.”

Steve’s jaw dropped and he stared at him in horror. “You wouldn’t,” he said grimly. “Would you?”

“I don’t know, if I buy one for myself that will get you driving it, so I might just do it that way,” Danny replied and laid a hand on his lover’s thigh.

“Sneaky,” Steve complained. “Is that how you solved those 87 murders? By being sneaky?” But he wasn’t upset, not really, he was enjoying watching Danny relax as he continued to tease him. It was like he had begun to believe it and was now starting to realise he had a whole lot more opportunities opening up for him and his children.

“Yep,” Danny agreed. “But it also means we can afford to take a break,” he added, studying his lover for a few moments. “When was the last time you actually took some time off? That wasn’t because either of us were in hospital? It’ll be good for you, for us.”

Steve was going to say no, that he didn’t think that was necessary, that he didn’t need it, he was fine, but then he realised that was what Danny thought he was going to say, and the dark expression that flittered across his partner’s face as he opened his mouth made his change tactic. “Got any ideas on where to go?” he asked instead.

Danny grinned. “I always wanted to go to New Zealand,” he told him, using his hands expansively. “Take you, Gracie and Charlie for a couple of months, stay in a couple of places, that sort of thing.”

Steve thought about it for a few and then nodded, it sounded great. And… “Maybe we could find a chapel too,” he commented. He was trying to sound nonchalant but was failing, miserably.

Danny squinted at him, he’d heard the comment and figured out what he meant. And laughed. “If you’re asking me to marry you now that I’m a rich man, you’d better be a bit more formal than that, Babe,” he teased and nudged him with his elbow. “If you’re asking because you’re, well, you’re you and this is how you go about deep emotional commitments, then…” He paused to take a breath and thought about it. “Then yes, let’s find a chapel while we’re there.”

It took a moment for Steve to figure out what Danny was saying with his boatload of words, but when he got it he grinned goofily. “I’d marry you if we only had two cents to rub together, Danno, I mean it,” he assured him. “I love you.”

Danny grinned and moved to press a kiss to his partner’s, no _fiancé’s_ cheek. “I love you too, you gooey pile of mush.” He laughed and placed a hand on the back of Steve’s neck, gently scratching his scalp, just the way the big SEAL liked it. “How anyone could think you’re the big bad I have no idea.”

Steve closed his eyes and relaxed, Danny knew exactly what he was doing with those talented fingers, making him want to purr. “You did, once,” he managed.

“Yeah, for about ten minutes,” Danny replied, extremely fond. “You couldn’t hide from me though.”

Steve knew the truth of that, Danny had read him like a book from probably the second day they had known each other. But he was saved from admitting it with a knock on the office door.

It was Lou and he walked in immediately, but with a hand over his eyes. “Stop whatever you’re doing, we’ve got a case,” he told them, then spread his fingers so he could peak through.

Only to see Steve snorting with laughter and Danny rolling his eyes heavenward. “We don’t do anything NSFW, you know that Lou,” he told him.

With Lou frowning at the acronym Steve stood reluctantly and reached down for him. “Work awaits, D,” he told him. “I suppose we should do what we’re paid to.”

Danny took his hand and let him pull him up to stand. “I guess.”

 

 

The wake was held at end of the next week, on the beach at Steve’s back yard. They had decided on a small gathering of those who had known Toast, including his brother Nathan, and Danny was right, he was a good guy, certainly not annoyed that he didn’t get most of his brother’s money.

“Don’t worry about it, brah,” he told Steve when he asked him in a quiet corner. “Even my wife can’t spend ten million a year.” Steve looked over at the woman in question, laughing her head off at something Renee had said, much to Lou’s chagrin. The Commander grinned, nodded and clinked the neck of his own beer bottle with Nathan’s. “Preach,” he said drily, making Nathan laugh and nod.

Danny, sitting with Malia and Chin looked over at his other half at that point and smiled when he noted they were getting on. He was happy the pair of them were getting on, he didn’t want any strain between them, especially over money.

It wasn’t just them either, Charlie was shrieking with laughter with Nathan’s two youngest and Chin and Malia’s first child, all under the tutelage of Sam Grover and Jerry, while Grace was talking intently with Noelani while they shared the hammock. They had shared their engagement news with Grace and the plans to take her and her brother away to New Zealand and she was ecstatic for them, but not so happy with the time away from Will although she’d assured them she’d get over that the moment they were on the plane.

Steve noted his smile and smiled at Nathan before he left him with Kono and Adam and walked back over to his partner, taking the chair next to him. “You okay?” he asked him.

Danny nodded and looked around them. “I think he would have been surprised about all the people here,” he told him.

“Yeah, I think so,” Steve agreed. He drank some beer while he thought he wanted to say. “He chose well when he chose you,” he told him after a few moments of silence. “Same as I did.”

Danny side-eyed him and then grinned and drank some more beer. “I guess you did, Babe,” he agreed. “I guess you did.”

 

End


End file.
